Quote:
Originally Posted by NWPilgrim
First time I saw that game with little lawn bowling balls or whatever.
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bocce (pronounced bochie) . Italian outdoor game. (As opposed to the English lawn bowls). Seemed to be popular in NE when I was growing up. Liked to play it when I was in HS though we never did it much. This girl I was interested in at the time; her family had a set and would play it so some of us would end up at her place and end up playing. That was probably the reason for the appeal of bocce.
I like Boston the city. When I was 10, we moved from Phoenix AZ to Massachusetts, where my dad got a new job with DEC. We lived in a "bedroom community", mostly rural area about 40 miles from Boston's airport. So I finished grade school starting in 5th grade, up through HS in Mass. Later worked for a few years in Nashua NH, living at my parents house and going to night school. About 8-9 years later, moved back to southern NH [about 15-20 miles north of where I grew up -- same area but across the border] for almost 5 years and worked for a year in Mass during that time.
I always liked to visit Boston, with Quincy Market being my favorite place wander around. Took some boy scouts to Fenway on Scout Day to see the Red Sox. As a kid, around 12, we went and saw the Bruins in the "Gahden". Had friends who were students at Harvard, BU, and Berklee so would go down to visit, and for a while, would drive down to Cambridge every Sunday for church services at a student/singles based congregation. Boston was always a "homey" [not home-boy, but "home feeling"] place for me. Congenial. And not a fun place to drive, due to all the one way streets and meandering roads. I always enjoyed wandering around in Boston, for whatever reason.
We moved to Mass in 1976. That year the Phoenix Suns won the western conference to go to the finals. Of course, growing up and being in Phoenix, I was stoked. But we moved to Mass before the Finals started or during the Finals and lived in our new house there by the time the Celtics won the championship. I quickly converted over to the Celtics.
That same summer we went downtown to Boston along the river for the Bicentennial, on July 4. Huge huge crowds, drunks wandering around naked [fascinating for a 10 year old kid from the suburbs of Phoenix who wondered why the cops weren't arresting these people], my first subway ride, Boston Pops, and what was at the time, the largest fireworks display with the largest aerial rocket [at the time] lit off, which exploded way under altitude. Boston made a big impression on me when we went there the first time.
And the history of it is cool. Arizona didn't become a state until 1912 IIRC. We moved from there, and the desert, to a place where (a few of) the battles of the revolution had taken place, and a cradle of liberty. [and has been mentioned, also a birthplace of the death of liberty]
And I still wear Green for the Celtics, though I never was a Red Sox fan until later, when I had moved away, and had a room mate from the Bronx... Now I root for the Sox. Patriots never did overcome my fan orientation towards the Dolphins (don't ask, I don't understand it either -- Dolphins have been it for me since I was around 6 or 7 years old and watched them on TV with my grandfather) though I root for the Patriots when they aren't playing Miami. I get strange looks around here in Utah when I tell people I don't care how the Jazz are doing.
Mass on the other hand can go suck donkey balls. Place is totally screwed up. Beautiful country but stoopid when it comes to common sense, taxes, politics, or anything normal life. I'll never live there again.
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